Toronto blessing

noun: A form of religious rapture marked by outbreaks of mass fainting,
laughter, shaking, weeping, fainting, speaking in tongues, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:

After Toronto, Canada, where the phenomenon was experienced in a church
in Jan 1994.

USAGE:

"[The movie Pan's Labyrinth] was received in awestruck rapture by the
world's press, and left me feeling a little like a Roman Catholic
prelate at a pentecostal ceremony, smiling with thin politeness while
all around congregants were getting a Toronto Blessing full in the face."
Peter Bradshaw; Hellboy II: The Golden Army; The Guardian
(London, UK); Aug 15, 2008.

"We'd have the Toronto Blessing 24/7, hooting away at our own puffed-up
selves, and our imagined separation from others -- and laughing in the
final realization that we're all in this together."
Geoff Olson; The Great Whatever; Vancouver Sun (Canada); Apr 14, 2001.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet. -Hal Borland, journalist (1900-1978)